FIDE World Cup: Praggnanandhaa packs a punch, Gukesh out

PANAJI: The world’s youngest chess champion, D Gukesh, suffered a third-round exit from the Chess World Cup in Goa on Saturday.

In the second game of the 64-player round at Resort Rio here, Germany’s Frederik Svane utilised an unusual and poorly played opening from Gukesh, where the top seed weakened his king side while the German grandmaster responded with an active defence, utilising his pawn-based structure to register his “career’s biggest victory.”

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Gukesh became the third Indian to be eliminated in Round 3 after Diptayan Ghosh and Pranesh M lost their respective games against higher-ranked Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia and Germany’s Vincent Keymer respectively.

It was a mixed day for the 10 Indians in the fray — four made it to the round of 32 players. The qualifiers of the day include experienced Harikrishna Pentala, world junior champion Pranav V and second and third seeds Arjun Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa R.

The attacking play of Pragg was the highlight of the day as the 20-year-old Chennai boy (2771 Elo) took 3 hours, 44 minutes to prevail over Armenia’s Robert Hovhannisyan in 42 moves.

In a quick chat with TOI, Pragg said, “I am happy with my game today as things went as I planned.”